


Red Pine

by ikuzonos



Category: Dangan Ronpa, New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, NDRV3 Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-23
Updated: 2017-07-23
Packaged: 2018-12-05 17:00:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11582361
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ikuzonos/pseuds/ikuzonos
Summary: A zoo is visited.[Major Endgame NDRV3 Spoilers]





	Red Pine

**Author's Note:**

  * For [fatiguedfern](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fatiguedfern/gifts).



> This was written for the ndrv3 christmas in july exchange hosted on tumblr!! I really hope you enjoy your gift!!

Sunlight awakens her before the alarm on her phone does. Kaede rolls over onto her side as her eyes slowly adjust to the soft light in the room. As they do so, she stifles a yawn. Kaede mostly feels refreshed, but part of her wants to curl under the covers and sleep for another hour or two. The others wouldn’t want her to do that, though. They’re expecting her soon.

She props herself up on one elbow and reaches down for her phone that’s lying on the floor, plugged into the wall. Seconds before the alarm goes off, she turns it off, glad that she doesn’t have to hear the piercing noise this morning.

Her eyelids droop again. It’s warm here, almost too warm. Kaede fiercely bites on her bottom lip, and that’s enough to make her kick off her duvet. It takes her a moment to swing her legs out of bed, but she manages it. Her stomach grumbles as she does so.

(She hopes that Iruma remembered to buy groceries.)

Kaede makes her way out of the room, her bare feet shivering slightly against the cold bamboo floors. She’s still not used to this apartment yet, despite the fact that she’s been living there for over a month now. Each morning, her foot still slips on the last floorboard before the kitchen.

Iruma is sitting at the table, her arms crossed and her eyes closed. For a moment, Kaede figures that she’s deep in thought, when the blonde lets out a tiny snore.

“Oh, for the love of-” Kaede walks up to her and shakes her- “Wake  _ up, _ Iruma-san! You were the one who insisted that we both be up early.”

Iruma groans and tries to shake Kaede off with little success, “Fuck off… Toeshi isn't here either, so don't get your pig tits in a twist.”

“I’m right here,” comes a low voice. Kaede glances towards the door to see it closing, and Hoshi ascending the steps that Iruma carved for him so that he could reach the high table.

When Team  _ Dangan Ronpa _ picked out this apartment for them, they hadn’t thought very much about the accessibility of it all.

Hoshi reaches the chair and slides a cardboard tray containing three coffees onto the table. Or, Kaede realizes as she looks closer, two coffees and a hot chocolate. Hoshi takes the latter and cracks it open without much thought.

Kaede slips into a chair herself and takes one of the coffees, leaving the last one for Iruma. The pink blonde girl doesn’t stir from her chair for a moment, looking disgruntled still. After a moment, she grabs the third cup, shaking it out of the tray.

“So… what’s going on, Iruma-san?” Kaede asks, taking a sip of the coffee, “Can you fill us in?”

Iruma snorts, “I have no plans to fill  _ either _ of you. It’s eight in the morning you kinky motherfucker.”

Hoshi says flatly, “She  _ means, _ will you finally tell us why you insisted we wake up early?”

Iruma crosses her arms defensively, “H-Hey! Don’t bark at me! I wanted you cucks to get up because none of us ever leave the apartment, and I want to  _ do things. _ ”

Kaede glances at Hoshi, who is too focused on his hot chocolate to respond, then says, “Well… what do you want to do, Iruma-san? There’s not really a lot of great entertainment options around here.”

_ We could go to a play. _

Kaede glowers at the thought and clenches her fists. Now is really  _ not _ the time to think about something like that, that’s what her nightmares are for.

(Saihara rises onto the stage his neck clasped tight and he dances around the party guests swinging the weapons furiously at him until he comes to a revolver that there’s no way around and he barely has time to close his eyes before the guest shoots six holes through him.)

“We’re going to the fucking zoo!” Iruma yells, slamming her fist on the table.

Kaede tenses, “Is it because you’re an animal?!” then instantly regrets shouting that.

Luckily, Iruma snorts, “Damn, when did you grow balls like that, Bakamatsu? We’re going to the zoo because I like red pandas.”

Hoshi closes his hand around his cup of hot chocolate.

-

Iruma’s plan to keep them from being recognized mostly boiled down to ‘don’t get caught.’ So, clad in sunhats and sunglasses from Kaede’s closet, the three of them set out on the train. Thanks to his height, Hoshi is the hardest to disguise, considering how few people out there are three foot five. (“If it gets real bad, we can just pretend that he’s our fucking kid or some shit.” “You will do nothing of the sort.”)

The train ride passes without incident, though an adolescent boy in the same car as them keeps glancing in their direction, as if he wants to approach them. To Kaede’s relief, they have to get off the train before he works up the nerve to come speak to them.

The walk to the zoo itself is only five minutes, and by keeping their heads down, nobody bats an eye at them. It’s calming, to know that the three survivors of the final season of  _ Dangan Ronpa _ can still be normal people in some semblance of the word.

Iruma drags them through the front gates of the zoo, nearly pulling Kaede’s arm out of her socket. Once the three of them are inside, Iruma tears off towards one of the exhibits, and Hoshi flash steps after her, probably because she’ll somehow manage to set things on fire if she’s on her own for more than a couple seconds.

Kaede half-heartedly follows them, catching up to the both of them at the red panda exhibit. Iruma has her face pressed right up to it, while Hoshi stands a few feet behind, disinterested. But no matter how cute the panda is, Kaede can still hear the noise of the saw in the back of her mind.

(Birds snakes and rabbits alike swoop down on a tied up Yumeno scratching and pecking and biting at her as she moves closer and closer to a buzzsaw that won’t put her back together after it cuts her in half.)

She stumbles away, kneeling down on the ground and running her hands through the dirt. Maybe going to the zoo wasn’t a very good idea.

-

They stop for lunch at the zoo restaurant at Iruma’s insistence. Hoshi finds them a table while the other two order - supposedly to save time, but Kaede knows that it’s because he doesn’t want the workers to try and give him a kid’s toy again.

With three ‘Bopper Meals’ in hand, Kaede and Iruma settle down at the table that he picked for them. Iruma keeps the conversation going practically by herself, Hoshi chipping in occasionally with anecdotes, such as the blonde falling into the tortoise enclosure, and how cute the leopards were.

Kaede quietly eats her fries, slow and meticulous about it. Hoshi notices her discontent and whispers to her, “Not having fun, huh?”

She shrugs, “I just… the place brings back a lot of bad memories, you know?”

Hoshi looks at the unopened packet of honey mustard in front of his fries, and for a second, his eyes reflect Gonta’s still body, poisoned by a pot of his own honey. He murmurs, “Yeah. Yeah, I know.”

-

After lunch, Iruma - literally - drags them down to the gardens. Apparently, eating was enough to get her sick of actually looking at animals. Instead, they walk along the paths, admiring the hedges that are shaped like the various creatures.

(Kaede tries to ignore the thought of Harukawa running through the hedge maze as she flees the oncoming Exisals, the thought of her fruitless journey to a dead end before being pierced by a poisonous arrow.)

While Iruma bounces ahead, Hoshi sticks to Kaede’s side, which she’s grateful for. He seems to see it too, see the remains of their fallen friends amongst the bright sunlight and zoo animals.

It feels comforting to have someone by her side as the memories return to her. Someone else who found Amami at breakfast with a knife in his neck, someone who had to see Chabashira stabbed right through the stomach and Shinguuji torn to pieces, who had to see Toujou hanging from the pipes on the ceiling, swaying like a pendulum.

Kaede’s vision swims as she makes her way around the hedges, but it slowly steadies itself every time that she remembers that Hoshi and Iruma are nearby. Even though Iruma pretends that nothing is wrong, she too knows the horrors that the game has wrought on them.

-

Kaede stumbles out of the rubble that was once the Gifted Inmates Academy, Hoshi right behind her. Iruma is staring up at the hot sun, her eyes wide.

The cage has blown up. Kiibo and Shirogane are dead.  _ Dangan Ronpa _ is over, forever.

She falls to her knees and sobs.


End file.
